Clare is Honorary Research Fellow for the Department of Education, and Professor of Education at University of Cambridge. She takes up the position of Head of Faculty, of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge in October 2026.
Prior to joining Cambridge, Clare was Professor of Education at UCL’s Institute of Education. At UCL, Clare had several leadership roles including as Pro-Director (Vice Dean) for Education, a role with oversight of the strategic development of Education across the IOE’s portfolio, Head of Department, Curriculum Pedagogy and Assessment, and Head of Initial Teacher Education, and alongside these leadership roles, she developed research interests into the quality and development of teacher education particularly when enacted at scale.
Her background is in geography education: she was a geography teacher in East London, then as a geography teacher educator at IOE, developing both initial and continuing teacher education programmes, and focusing her research interest on the importance of subject identity for teacher professional practice, with a particular emphasis on geographical subject knowledge. She has been very active in the international geography education community, acting as Co-Chair of the International Geographical Union Commission for Geography Education, and editor of their book series, and Chair for the UK-based Geography Education Research Collective.
Clare regularly undertakes consultancy-based work around ITE (nationally and internationally), and was the Director of the research Centre on Teacher and Early Years education. Her current project, funded by the Government of the Repulibic of Armenia, requires her to lead the development of the research strategy for the new Education Cluster of the Academic City. In her research she often uses spatial theory to gain a deeper understanding of teacher education in different contexts.
Selected Recent Publications
Brooks, C., McIntyre, J., Mutton, T., Burn, K., & Hetherington, L. (2025) “The hidden intellectual work of teacher educators: preserving signature pedagogies during policy reform”, European Journal of Teacher Education, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2025.2554686
Hordern, J. and Brooks, C. (2025) ‘The ITTECF and educational research: the next version of a flawed vision?’. London Review of Education, 23 (1), 6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.23.1.06.
Brooks, C. (2025) ‘Systemic curricular injustice in initial teacher education through curriculum control and marketization’. The Curriculum Journal, DOI: 10.1002/curj.332
Hordern, J. and Brooks, C. (2024) Towards Instrumental Trainability in England? The ‘Official Pedagogy’ Of The Core Content Framework, British Journal of Educational Studies, DOI: 10.1080/00071005.2023.2255894
Brooks, C., & Perryman, J. (2024). Teacher recruitment policies: accelerating issues of spatial justice in England. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 52(3), 301–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2024.2324352
Hordern, J. and Brooks, C. (2023) The core content framework and the ‘new science’ of educational research, Oxford Review of Education, 49:6, 800-818, DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2023.2182768